Reading now about reports coming out now regarding the blind shear ram and the BP report (attempting to blame) on the oil workers’ initial response to stop the gas coming up.
A poster commented on the similarities between this and the Challenger incident:
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Both were engineering decisions gone wrong (so he argues)
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But whereas Challenger mainly resulted form the O ring faultiness, Deepwater had a series of failures, and most oil rigs now have redundant blind shear rams (which are known to have high failure rates). Critics say the workers acted according to procedure based on what they knew at the time (and iI find it harder to believe that oil workers would take shortcuts on their own lives to make a buck, rather than some management who is not risking his own life on the rig to make a decision to cut costs, etc.)
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Interestingly, NASA grounded flights for another 2 years to work out and rework designs to prevent another disaster. None of the political parties disagreed. In contrast, when some called for moratorium on drilling (and the BP fund), there was a huge outcry and accusations of “socialism” and heavy-handed government intervention etc. Funny how money affects those decisions.